


hidden in the sand (but all i wanted was you)

by TheCatfish



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: D&D stuff, F/F, Fantasy High Sophomore Year Spoilers (Dimension 20), Grief/Mourning, Mutual Pining, Planescape References, Redemption, Relationship Study, Seven Maidens, Sort Of, Toxic Friendships, Unreliable Narrator, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-19 06:47:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29995488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCatfish/pseuds/TheCatfish
Summary: It's been a year since prom happened and the Seven Maidens were rescued from the jaws of Kalvaxus' lair. Sam has moved on in that time, and isn't still hung up on her dead ex best friend who she definitely wasn't in love with.Totally.But when Penelope Everpetal crawls out of the grave and into Sam's window, it becomes much, much, much harder for her to pretend, as old feelings bubble up and threaten to spill out.
Relationships: Aelwyn Abernant & The Seven Maidens, Aelwyn Abernant/Penelope Everpetal, Aelwyn Abernant/Sam Nightingale, Penelope Everpetal & The Seven Maidens, Penelope Everpetal/Sam Nightingale, Sam Nightingale & The Seven Maidens
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5





	1. let's go to the garden

**Author's Note:**

> it's rarepair time with the villain npcs lets go

The day is May 15th. Sam Nightingale sits in her room, the waterproof headphones that Zelda gave her for her birthday last month sealed firmly against her ears as she stares blankly out the window at the pouring rain. She thinks her mother is yelling about whatever random bullshit she’s on now, probably on the telecrystal to one of her friends complaining as loud as possible about whatever celebrity gossip she can project on now. It’s only part of what Sam is hoping to drown out. 

Well, more realistically, she’s just stewing in the misery of having a dead best _friend_ who would rather allow her to be sacrificed to a demonic dragon than admit to the numerous fucked up things she’d done over the past year, and this grief that comes with being joined at the hip to someone so utterly selfish that they’d drown the world in flames to be fucking fawned over by whatever’s left. 

Sam always thought that Penelope was like… inescapable. That no matter what Sam Nightingale wanted, she would always be at Penelope’s right hand. It didn’t matter what happened, some part of her would always be devoted to her in a way that made the Harvestmen look pretty cool and chill about their own religion what with their apocalyptic cult. 

It feels weird to miss her. To miss being awkward tweens sneaking out of class to run around the mall for a couple hours doing nothing in particular. The sleepovers, the movie nights, the hushed whispers and giggles in the back of the classroom only growing whenever they were silenced by whatever grumpy teacher stood at the helm. It wasn’t all bad, she thinks. Or maybe she’s just been delusional for a whole lot longer than she thought. It doesn’t matter.

The other six maidens are worried. She can tell by all the texts. She figures they’re all in their stupid ‘Operation Cheer Up Sam’ or ‘Operation Get Sam Over Her Evil Ex Crush’ chat and are trying to test the waters. She picks up her crystal now to stare at all of them. She turned off the ‘Seen’ notification a while ago so they wouldn’t know she’s actually like, actively ghosting them and not just crying or whatever.

 **  
** **  
** **luxstone11: hey sam!!! lmk if ur available to hang out or if u want to talk or something we’re all here for u girl**

 **  
** **  
** Penny’s sweet. Sweeter maybe than Sam thinks she probably deserves. It’s not like she’s been particularly nice all her life. Not even to Penelope. Or Penny, or Antiope or Danielle. 

There’s a text from Antiope, a polite reminder that she’s here if Sam wants to talk. She thinks Antiope’s smart enough to know that she’s like, never really going to follow up on that. But it’s the thought that counts. Another from Zelda, this one just a playlist. Sam hates Zelda’s music so much, but the thought is so sweet that she sends a heart back and tells her that she’s working on one in return. She knows that Zelda, in turn, also fucking hates Sam’s music. She’s not sure why they do this but it brings her some level of comfort. She scrolls down further, Ostentatia, Danielle, Katya. Ostentatia came after her. There’s some level of solidarity on that.

She stops when she sees Aelwyn Abernant’s handle. 

**aelwyn_aberration: Hi, Sam. It’s been a while but it’s me, Aelwyn, as you can probably tell. Are you busy today?**

Sam stares, perplexed. They hadn’t really spoken since a party up at Mordred Manor lead them to drunkenly overshare while draped over each-other in what was a pretty pathetic display by like, any account. Especially Sam’s. Still, despite herself she kind of likes Aelwyn. She’s… well, not kind, but not cruel nowadays either. Just withdrawn. Out of place, like she feels she doesn’t deserve to be where she is now. Maybe Sam’s out of place too. And maybe it helps that her cruel little smirks and hidden little barbs all remind her distinctly of someone else, someone who even in dead probably still held her heart wrapped up in her thick manipulative spider web. 

**azureblue: what do u want?**

**aelwyn_aberration: Ah, there she is. Well. Ragh Barkrock (my roommate, you’re familiar I think) wanted to go visit Dayne Blade’s grave over at Cravencroft since it’s the anniversary of his death. I have a car and the adults are working. So.**

**aelwyn_aberration** : **Now, I know what you’re thinking, Dayne Blade? Who would mourn that piece of shit?**

****aelwyn_aberration** : I assume that’s what you’re thinking anyway, I met him once and tried to resist the urge to immediately kill him. But mixed, complicated feelings and all that, I’m sure you know the drill. I don’t know if there’s a single positive feeling mixed in there, but he wanted to visit anyway. Plus Jawbone said it’d be a good idea to let his feelings out and cuss at his grave or what have you. **

It seems a little irrational how much, even now, Sam kinda super fucking hates Dayne Blade. She knows that Dayne was dumb as a sack of bricks, even dumber than Ragh maybe, and that everything he did was because he was too stupid to think for himself and he was being lead along by his fanatical coach or Penelope or his evil parents or something, but even the thought of him still makes her want to punch something. Residual jealousy probably, for all the times that Penelope blew her off to go hang out with her totally super dreamy boyfriend. Or maybe because he’s a homophobic bigoted asshole who tried to bring about the apocalypse. Something rational and fair like that. 

**azureblue: ok tell him to have fun**

**azureblue: why r u telling me about this anyway**

****aelwyn_aberration** : I’m going to visit Penelope. **

Oh.

****aelwyn_aberration** : Do you want to come? I figured you might be interested. Your best friend and all that.**

Oh…

Going to visit the grave of the girl who allowed her to be kidnapped by Johnny Spells of all people with said girl’s co-conspirator in trying to destroy the world for spite, fun and power. She looks outside at the rain, then at the door where her mom has apparently upgraded to full-on drunken weeping. Maybe it’s something topical. Dad, Sam, the fact that she couldn’t protect her or whatever. The sight turns her stomach a little.

Fuck it. Not like she has anything better to do.

**azureblue: sure whatever. ill meet you there yeah? in like… idk half an hour?**

Aelwyn types for around thirty seconds before finally responding. Sam figures she was going back and forth on wording or something, because when she does get the notification, all it says is;

****aelwyn_aberration** : Sure. See you there. :) **

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


When Sam does arrive at Cravencroft, stepping off the local bus and lowering her headphones playing her somewhat embarrassingly angsty music, Aelwyn is just sitting next to the gateway, looking at her crystal with a cigarette in her mouth. Sam didn't know that she smokes. She looks a lot less put together than the few times that Sam saw her and Penelope hanging out, back when they were both putting up fronts and acting like they were this unattainable level of perfection next to the ants who crawled at their feet. Now Aelwyn just wears sweatpants, a pink hoodie and a puffy jacket that she probably stole from the guidance councilor that like, adopted her or something. 

“Hey,” Sam says, somewhat stiffly. And Aelwyn looks up at her and instinctively seems to evaporate the cigarette into thin air. She climbs to her feet with a smile. It feels like the kind of smile that would radiate smug superiority, but it’s been honed down and now it’s just an expression from the face of someone who just so happens to have been like, a monster in the past. Yeah.

“Hello. No trouble getting here?” 

“No trouble, no,” Sam says with a slightly amused smirk. As if she’s going to get lost on the bus in this tiny hovel of a town. Aelwyn really is a disconnected level of wealthy. “Is Ragh like, here yet or are we still waiting?”

Aelwyn nods. “He went ahead. I did drive him, you know. They’re actually in different places, if you’d believe it. Wonders truly never cease.”

“Yeah, I know. I uh,” Sam’s eyes meet the hill that she can now see Ragh standing atop, “I’ve been here before. For the funeral, you know.” 

Aelwyn makes a quiet noise of acknowledgement. Neither of them mention that the funeral in question happened while she was being kept in her sleep deprivation bubble. They walk in not quite uncomfortable silence for a little while, Sam remembers to avoid the caretaker like the plague or else she’ll have to hear about his mangled dick again, eugh. Aelwyn seems content to follow her lead on that, and Sylvester gets the point. 

Aelwyn speaks up as they approach the hill. “Was it good?” 

Sam raises a watery eyebrow at her, “Was what good?”

“The funeral. I mean when we were… in the middle of all that I always wondered what mine might look like. Here lies Aelwyn. Perfect daughter, until she helped Kalvaxus come back and tried to kill her sister. Whoopsies!” 

Sam snorts. She’s not sure what a good funeral looks like anyway. Maybe just what the dead person would have wanted. “I think… knowing Penelope, she’d probably be disappointed at how few people were there and fewer still that were actually, like… mourning? There was her dad. Me. Penny, kinda. Some of her old middle school friends. Some of her extended family. Everyone actually at the school just kind of fucking hated her guts, you know. And the rest just didn’t want to talk about it. A lot of stories about the kid she used to be, you know.”

Aelwyn frowns and turns to look at Sam. 

“What about you?” Aelwyn says.

“I don’t know,” Sam just stares ahead, right at the grave with a fresh bouquet of flowers laid atop it. Her dad, probably. “Maybe I should. Maybe I shouldn’t. She tried to… help me, I guess, and I blew her off to go hang out with Johnny fucking Spells of all people. But she also just… chose to save her own skin over fishing me out, I guess. I…”

Her face is hot. The watery texture of her skin is being warmed up by the tears welling up in her eyes. Aelwyn offers a hand and Sam burns, or rather boils, in embarrassment as she offers hers in turn.

“You don’t have to continue, Sam,” Aelwyn says gently. It’s so weird being treated well. Johnny just called her an idiot and she always felt like Penelope was just walking circles around her with her manipulative controlling bullshit. Or maybe Sam just… imagined it. But it’s hard to really tell with Penelope. When she wanted someone to feel shit about themself, she’d do it, but in a way that convinces her target and everyone around them that they’re the problem, not her. She’d spin people around on her little web and everyone would always come out adoring her and worshipping the ground she stood on. For a while, Sam thought she was safe from that. But she knows differently now.

Sam nods. She tries to speak but no words come out. _I guess I just miss her. Maybe more than I’ve ever missed anyone._

Sam is mortified as she realises everything she just dumped at Aelwyn’s feet to the other girl’s blatant floundering confusion. “God, I’m so sorry for just like, dumping all that shit on you.”

Aelwyn laughs a little, “Oversharing does seem to be our primary method of communication,” There’s a beat of silence before she clears her throat, “It’s okay, Sam. You can talk to me if you want to. I can’t exactly relate, I guess, your situation seems a tad more complicated than mine but… well, you know.”

Sam nods and rubs at her eyes. “Yeah. I do. And like, you know. It’s a two-way street and all that shit.”

Aelwyn smiles. Sam isn’t sure if it means that she’d take her up on that offer, or if it’s a ‘it’s so sweet of you to offer that, i will never be vulnerable at any point to you.’ She’d kinda understand either option, to be honest. The fact that she’s even here with Aelwyn Abernant of all people is bizarre in and of itself. It feels like a bit of a betrayal in some ways. Antiope still hates her so much. Not as much as Penelope but still. Sometimes she thinks that Antiope only chose dragons as her favoured enemy because the school actually had stuff for that and not ‘high school mean girls.’

They stop walking once they reach the top of the hill where Penelope Everpetal’s body lies, her name etched on the stone forever. She always wanted a legacy. She got one, but it wasn’t the one she wanted. Sam wonders if that would matter to her. Did she just want to be looked at? Remembered? Seen? Or was it something else? Power? Adoration?

Love?

Aelwyn clears her throat. “I’ll give you some time alone.”

  
  
Sam doesn’t look at her, just sits and nods and whispers out an okay that’s just barely loud enough to be heard. It doesn’t take long for her to realise that she’s completely alone here, really. It’s a known fact that this graveyard is haunted, and Aelwyn and Ragh and Sylvester are… somewhere, but Sam feels entirely shut off from the world.

What is she even supposed to say here? _Hey, P. Sorry you died. You kinda had it coming though. I still miss you even though I know I shouldn’t._

  
  
That’s stupid. Penelope hated nicknames. 

“So, I know a little bit about dying and stuff. And I know you’re like, for sure not even listening to me right now. Which I guess is a fun little switch on our old dynamic, you know? You trying to talk to me and me not listening because I didn’t want to hear it and… yeah,” Sam hugs her knees as she stares at the name etched in stone, so bland, so generic sitting next to a dozen other graves. Penelope Everpetal, beloved daughter. They couldn’t even write beloved friend. What do you do when you’re burying a loved one who caused _so_ much fucking misery for so many people?

“Part of me is still not sure who to blame, you know? Like… yeah, obviously Johnny Spells put me in a crystal. But to be honest, I know that I only dated that asshole because I wanted to make you jealous and to like, remind you that I don’t just… belong to you,” She lets out a short bitter laugh, “Even though I think to some extent I probably did, you know? That’s how it goes with best friends and sidekicks.”

“But you still left me there, when you could have helped me. But if you did, you would’ve died, right?” God, why is she making excuses. Why is all her resolve fading at the sight of a name etched in stone? Why is she so _weak_? “But even if… even if you cared about me. You still hurt my friends. All of them, really. That I don’t think I can forgive. If that’d even be my right.”

“But I didn’t really come here for that. I know I’m just talking to a hunk of stone right now but… my life’s been okay lately. Mom relapsed into her old drinking habit after I went missing so, you know, thanks Johnny. And you too, of course, can’t take that from you. I stopped dating creepy adult men who hang out at high schools, so that’s an improvement in my life, I guess,” She laughs at her own self-deprecation. Not that it isn’t one hundred percent true. “I befriended the other ‘Seven Maidens’, that’s still super fucking creepy though, you know that right? Like, jesus. But it’s a bomb-ass party name, so that’s what we go by. Aelwyn’s here. She’s cool. I see why you liked her, maybe because she’s just like you. Maybe that’s why I like her too, I don’t know.” 

Sam lets out a sigh. This is stupid. It’s all so fucking stupid. She just feels more sad, more confused about her own feelings, weirdly guilty too. 

“I really loved you, you know. I think I still do. I don’t mean in a platonic galpal way, for the record, I mean… I guess I was really in love with you, and probably a little terrified of it, you know? You have that effect on people.”

  
  
“I guess if I had to sum all this up… uh, you sucked. I kinda sucked too. I’m still glad I met you, and… I’ll probably keep missing you for a long time. And I guess...” The wind around her seems to slow down as she speaks, the leaves stop shaking above her, and the sounds of distant traffic slow to a silent crawl. Sam doesn’t notice any of this. She’s too busy trying not to let herself cry in this creepy fucking graveyard. 

“I guess I just wish things could’ve been different.”

The wind keeps blowing, the leaves keep shaking, and the cars keep moving. Change was enacted on the world, like it always was. Ever changing, ever turning, such is the way of the Great Wheel. 

Sam stands up to go find Aelwyn. 

* * *

The drive back, which Sam was gracefully invited along for, is quiet. Sam has never really seen Ragh Barkrock upset in a way that wasn’t like, barbarian rage. He didn’t seem to be grieving, not in the way that Sam was anyway. If you could call it grief. Grieving the transformation of a person you love into a person you should hate. But Dayne Blade was rotten to the core.

Probably. Not that Sam ever gave enough of a shit about him in a way that wasn’t seething jealousy and exasperation. Maybe Penelope didn’t either. 

Aelwyn stops the car at the guidance councilors new mansion. She gives Ragh a nod that even from the outside Sam can tell means, ‘ _I’ll be with you in a little bit_.’ He returns the nod with an affirmative grunt and he steps out of the car, only slamming the door a little on his way out.

Instrumental progress, Sam thinks, perhaps a little cruelly. It’s been a full year since she last knew him as the resident angry asshole who pushed everyone down to make himself seem bigger. Hard to see him differently. As like, happy, and friendly, and just a bit aggressive but in a somewhat overly positive way. 

“So,” Aelwyn says, clearing her throat. “Did it help?”

“Not really,” Sam says, leaning her head against the window, tired. “I think I just want to sleep. Should probably text my friends and let them know you didn’t murder me.”

Aelwyn laughs. It’s humourless. Probably because she wasn’t really joking. 

“I’d appreciate it. Ostentatia already texted me that she knows where I live, like it’s a big secret.”

“You did kidnap her, to be fair,” Sam points out.

“Did I? Must’ve slipped my mind,” Aelwyn says in a snide tone of voice that nearly reminds Sam of Penelope for a moment, and reminds Sam exactly of what Aelwyn used to be. Sam raises her head to stare at her, a little shocked admittedly, despite herself. “Sorry, yeah. She’s right not to trust me. If you want to hang out in a less depressing setting, you have my number.”

Sam gives her a weary smile, with no real response. Maybe. Aelwyn is kind to her. Understanding. But she’s so familiar, and Sam isn’t sure how to feel about it. 

“For now, I think I just want to go home.”

Aelwyn returned the smile, “Coming right up.”

They drove the rest of the way in the sad silence that they’d stewed in for the trip to Mordred Manor in the first place. Sam lives close, anyway. Just outside Elm Valley. Right across the street from the old Everpetal residence, now pretty much abandoned with an untouched ‘For Sale’ sign bound to the fence since Penelope’s dad moved back down to Bastion City. Only seems to come back for the big events, like the anniversaries and birthdays. Sam finds herself staring at it. 

“Your stop, Nightingale,” Aelwyn says gently, noticing her staring. 

“Yeah, thanks. I’ll um, call you,” Sam stammers awkwardly as she unbuckles the seatbelt and climbs out of the car. “Thank you, Aelwyn.”

Aelwyn gives her a smile, a sad look in her eye, “What are friends for?”

In a moment of perhaps very poor impulse control, Sam leans over and plants a kiss on Aelwyn’s cheek. Her eyes widen and Sam’s eyes begin to widen too. “Sorry, that was… yeah. Anyway. I’m uh… I’ll see you, yeah?” 

Aelwyn nods, clearly still a bit in shock, “Yeah, sure. Bye, Sam. I’ll see you.” She seems to regain her composure by force, something Sam imagines she’s used to and she gives a gentle smile and another nod before she starts the car back up. The elemental whirrs to life with a dull howl and it starts moving away. Sam doesn’t go back inside immediately, instead watching Aelwyn drive away down the street and back up the hill toward Cravencroft. 

Lonely. This is loneliness. Her with all her friends and she’s feeling lonely because her new evil elven… friend… drove off. Just lonely. 

Sam turns toward the door, unlocks it with her key and allows it to creak open as she walks in to find her mom passed out on the couch, a half empty bottle of wine on the coffee table. 

She looks down at her mother, the elemental tint of her skin turned slightly green from her inebriation. She leans down, brushes her hair out of her face and places a cushion under her head. She sighs as she grabs the wine and places it back in the cabinet her mom leaves all her drinks in. She considers hiding it or disposing of it, but she’ll just go and get more, or she won’t get up at all. 

Sam thinks that she should probably be the one to have a depressive episode in response to being kidnapped for five months, but she knows that’s neither how it works nor fair. So her mom can… do what she wants. Sam’s just going to retreat to her room and… text her friends, probably. And then fall asleep not wearing the shirt that Penelope last left at her house two years ago. She just wishes she could think about anything else tonight.

She gives her mom one final look, passed out peacefully, for once not yelling about anything, or spiralling, or anything. She smiles a little, painfully. And then she steps into her room.

Matted brown hair, torn pink dress, blood splattered all over her face, makeup messed up, eyes bruised, a deranged grin on her face.

Penelope Everpetal stares back. 

Sam feels any words she could speak die in her throat when her dead best friend wraps her arms around her torso, and she tenses up instinctively.

“I won, Sam,” Penelope says deliriously, “The crown is mine. It all paid off. All the sacrifices. Everything was worth it. It’ll all be mine, Sam. I love you, Sam. It’ll all be worth it.” She laughs against Sam’s shirt, her body shaking in Sam’s arms. She doesn’t know when she started hugging back. But she is. Clinging onto Penelope's ruined dress like if she lets go something awful will happen.

“You’re dead,” Sam says, breathlessly. 

Penelope laughs into her chest. Her breath coming out reedy and weak. Eventually it turns to sobs, and then eventually it turns into nothing at all. Just wheezing breaths as she slowly drifts into unconsciousness in the arms of the only friend that she’s ever really had. 

Sam stands there, her own breath short, trying not to have a panic attack. _What the fuck am I supposed to do now?_


	2. carved your name in my heart again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which sam nightingale has a sleepover with her undead ex, is forced into doing exercise by a tyrant and plays truant like a delinquent.

Penelope Everpetal dreams of hell. She dreams of roaring devils, and whips, and chains, torment and the claustrophobic iron city walls of Dis. She feels her crown as a heavy weight on her head, jutting into her skull. She’s surrounded by people she used and hated, and she’s deprived of anyone she ever actually liked. All around is the inescapable smell of sulphur, and sweat, and blood, and the distant sounds of screams no matter how far you went. This is her punishment, like the angels who fell with Asmodeus at the dawn of the Great Wheel.

She would have fit in there. It would take some time for her to transform from a petitioner into a fully transformed fiend, but eventually, her ambition, desire for power, desire for attention, desire for everything and everyone would lead her to the top of the ranks where she could put her all in the endless war between the two evils that had no point beyond the neverending suffering of the damned mortal souls lured into the lower planes. She’s always thrived off hierarchy, existing systems to manipulate and twist with plenty of hearts to toy with and break to suit her whims and bring her closer to what she wanted. What she wanted would never truly be hers because the truth is that she wanted everything and more. Perhaps that’s her punishment in some sick twist, giving her the power that she feels that she deserves while throwing aside anything that made her happy in her old life. Not fulfilled, not powerful, not adored, just… happy. Was there anything in her life that came close to giving her that? Nothing that she can remember. Maybe there was something?

A name. Something to do with birds… a pet maybe? Close… it wasn’t a lover. She remembers Dayne. He was nothing. A status symbol that came with the added bonus that being manipulated came as easy to him as breathing after years of religious indoctrination from his parents and coach. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t anything close to him. She was more important.

Friend? Someone… something. Why can’t she remember? Maybe it’s the crown, maybe that’s what’s keeping her head so heavy. But it’s not as if she could take it off. It’s who she is. No. The crown stays. She’s done too much for the sake of this crown to give it up now. Too much. She sacrificed too much. 

Maybe the crown’s the thing that’s important. That has to be it. She’d remember something else. Right?

* * *

Sam is in a bit of a state right now. She’s changed Penelope out of her ruined prom dress and put her in a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt after doing her best to clean her wounds with the Prestidigitation cantrip. Penelope is now occupying the entirety of Sam’s bed which feels like there’s a metaphor hidden in there somewhere. She is running into a problem, however. She can’t do anything about this. If she called her friends, they’d want to just kill her again, right? If she called the police, they’d throw her in jail and maybe kill her too? Send her to the hospital and she goes right back to the second option. Send her to the school nurse and… yeah then she’d have to deal with all the other people Penelope hurt. 

She doesn’t even bother to ask herself why she cares, she knows it’s irrational and stupid, but she does, and she’s in this now, like it or not. Sam idly wonders if she was miscategorized as a sorcerer. Maybe she’s some fucked up kind of Warlock who accidentally sold her soul to her middle school best friend and now she’s just stuck. 

Penelope stirs in her sleep and Sam jumps.  _ She’s murmuring something _ , Sam realizes. She leans in real close to hear Penelope’s voice and all that comes out is a husky dehydrated whisper, but Sam catches the meaning.

“Night… Night...gale… Night.” 

Sam’s heart skips a beat and she steps back. 

_ ‘I love you, Sam.’ _

She said that. She’d said that she loved her before but it was like, platonic. Sam thinks it was platonic, anyway. It was something. Or maybe it was nothing. Like Dayne. Or Penny, or Antiope, or Danielle, or… really anyone, maybe.

It’s hard to maintain the idea that everything Penelope Everpetal ever did was some carefully maintained manipulation when she’s laying right in front of her broken physically and mentally. All it makes Sam think about is where she went and that maybe nobody deserves to end up there. 

Exhausted, both emotionally and physically, Sam lays herself down beside her and slips one arm around her dead evil best friend and winds up just staring at the back of her head for a while. She knows that she should probably sleep, but she’s in a weird space where even that seems too exhausting to attempt, so she winds up just lying there, tracing circles over Penelope’s hand and laying her head against Penelope’s matted brown hair. 

She stays in a trance for a little while. The non-elf kind where you just sort of don’t think about what you’re doing. But she’s roused when Penelope starts to stir and turn. Sam sits up and rubs at her eyes and catches Penelope’s own eyes fluttering open. She smiles up at her through her cracked lips and whispers.

“Sam,” She breathes, her voice hoarse and husky, “I remember. Sam.”

“Hey, Penelope,” Sam says, feeling her own breath catch in her throat. That was a can of worms to be addressed later, maybe. “What the fuck?”

Penelope tries to laugh, she winds up just coughing. It even sounds painful. 

“Water,” She wheezes. Sam nods, steps over Penelope and flicks on the light. Penelope stares up at her blearily and groans. Sam grabs her fancy crystal bottle that she snatched from the Red Waste on their trip and fills it with water using the magic that comes with her heritage as an elemental genasi. Penelope makes a sound that sounds awfully close to a scoff, “Show off.”

Sam smiles at her and kneels down, “Sit up,” She says gently. Penelope tries with her atrophied muscles but seems to struggle. Sam briefly wonders how it was that Penelope managed to walk all the way to her house from Cravencroft in this sorry of a state before she offers her a hand and lifts her up, brushing her hair out of her face. She offers Penelope the bottle and helps her lift it and drink it. It’s… jarring. To see Penelope in a state of such vulnerability to another person. Sam’s seen it before, but when they were kids, when feigning fragility worked for Penelope and she wasn’t so afraid of slipping. And sometimes she was fragile. Sometimes she needed Sam to come over and spend time with her and watch their favourite movies and let her know that it’s okay to cry when she feels sad about her mom or really when she feels sad about anything. Occasionally Sam suspected that when they were kids, Penelope felt like needing Sam’s help was the easiest way for her to keep her around. 

Penelope drinks the water and raises a hand to wipe her face. “Where am I?” She says, quietly. “This is… your room?”

“Yeah, you just like, kind of showed up here. I don’t know how, I think you crawled in through the window.”

“I have absolutely  _ no  _ memory of doing that,” Penelope laughed. Then her face shifted a little as she started looking around the room, she zeroed in on the now empty spot on her dresser that used to house the photo they took in the photobooth at the mall way back in middle school when Penelope was an awkward tween with braces and freckles. “You got rid of the photo.”

Sam followed her eyesight and sighed, “Well, you did help put me in a gem.” 

Penelope looks at her as if she’s about to defend herself before falling silent. She just stares at Sam’s duvet cover before adjusting it around herself and sinking further into the mattress. “How long’s it been?” 

“Pretty much exactly a year. Yesterday was the anniversary of your death. And your birth too.” 

“D’you get me a present?” Penelope says with a smirk that makes Sam want to throttle her and kiss her at the same time. 

“What did you think the sweatpants were?” Sam remarks rather dryly for a Water Genasi. “And my bed apparently.” 

“I mean, there’s no reason we can’t, like, share it, you know? We basically like,  _ were _ just now. And we used to all the time when we were kids.”

_ Why are you acting like things are like they used to be? Why don’t you assume I hate you? I should hate you. Part of me does hate you. So why? _

Sam sighs. “Fine. But I have to go to school in four hours, and you’re still the girl who tried to destroy the world for a prom crown to most people here, so you’re staying here and hiding from my mom.”

Penelope smiles, shuffles over and lifts the duvet for Sam. Sam climbs in, trying not to hate herself for how weak she’s being right now. Even trying to hate Penelope a little bit. But that’s already a lost cause. Even more so as she feels her warm arms around her. 

* * *

Sam wakes up before Penelope does. She has a spell prepared, so that she doesn’t have to deal with alarms or hungover mothers. For a long moment, Sam convinced herself that it was a dream. That Penelope was still dead, and she’d dreamt that her evil dead best friend former current crush had totally just inexplicably crawled through her fucking window in the dead of night. 

But no. Here she is. Snuggled up against her at eight in the morning, almost looking innocent from the morning’s glow. She had a tendency to do that. Every movement, the cute little giggles, fluttering of her eyelashes, friendly encouragement to strangers she considers less than dirt on her shoe, all of it cultivated to make her… perfect. Sam reaches out her hand and brushes her hair off her face, partly proving to herself that she’s real. Sam hates herself for thinking about how beautiful she is, even now. 

But she’s awoken from that train of thought by the notification of her crystal, particularly her Antiope notification that she already knows she can’t ignore, and she blearily goes to open it. 

First, she panics at Antiope’s message.

**dragonslayer: Hey. Katja and I are coming over. We’re running to school. You’re participating.**

First off, the idea of exercising with Antiope is conceptually terrifying just based on how ridiculously intense Antiope is. Her best and worst trait, really. Second off, coming to her house would mean that Antiope might encounter Penelope, which is an encounter that’s sure to end in blood. 

Then she starts reading through the rest.

Istishia, that’s a lot of messages.

She reads through a couple of them, quickly realising it’s much easier to just message the group-chat instead of answering them individually. 

**azureblue: hi. its sam. im fine and alive. aelwyn abernant didnt murder me. no, it wasnt a date bc 1. that’d be super fucking weird and 2. why would it be a date. and zelda i would love to study with you but i also super am not caught up on this whole cosmic alignment stuff in planar studies that’s been going on so im going to be a bit shit at it so maybe we should recruit someone else too. and danielle, casper the cactus is doing fine. any other questions**

**dragonslayer: Yes. The one I just texted you.**

**azureblue: tbf that was more of a demand. but yeah ill meet you guys outside just dont expect me to run as fast as u do**

**dragonslayer: Scared? :)**

**azureblue: :(**

Ostentatia’s account turns online and her typing bubble shows up and stays typing for another thirty seconds before she finally seems to hit enter.

**treasure-trove: i should probably delete some of the threatening texts i’ve been sending her then. see you in class.**

**azureblue: lol probably yeah**

And now it’s Penny’s turn. 

**luxstone11: did something happen tho or are u good?**

Sam stared down at Penelope, softly sleeping in her bed. Fuck. This was going to be an ordeal. She didn’t like the idea of lying to them. Maybe she didn’t have to. 

**azureblue: im fine! genuinely. nothing bad happened dw abt it i was just offline. sorry for ghosting.**

**luxstone11: well the offer’s still open if you ever want to talk i am right here but i’m glad you weren’t murdered by aelwyn that’s a plus. who asked if it was a date anyway??**

**azureblue: my sources remain anonymous**

Katja. The answer is Katja. 

**azureblue: aelwyn was… sweet. its fine. shes actually trying i think**

**luxstone11: i think so too. thats what riz says, anyway, and hes not super forgiving.**

**azureblue: classic the ball.**

Sam sighs. She needs to confide in her friends. They’re really her only support system, and they’ll understand. Penny will at least. Same adventuring party, same deal with being picked out by someone other than Penelope. 

Not that Penelope tried super hard for Penny.

She starts typing when she hears a rattle on the door.

Fuck. It’s Antiope. And Katja, but Katja was a sweetheart. Antiope feared no dragon, nor god. Sam remembers her muttering a prayer at night of all the ways she’d personally kill Tiamat herself. Which was metal as fuck and exactly why everyone looked to her for leadership but for the love of the deep blue ocean, she was scary.

Sam quickly got dressed, realised she had no time to shower and quickly used her magic to make herself presentable. She looked down at Penelope, softly sleeping in her bed and scrawled a note for her. 

‘Had to go to school. Wait until 10am when mom goes to work before going out. There’s snacks in the fridge. I’ll skip fourth and fifth period and get back early and then we can talk.

Don’t do anything evil while I’m gone <3’ 

Sam immediately regrets the heart, but it’s fine. It’s not as if that sort of affection is new to them. She feels as if it should change, but really, it doesn’t. They’d spent the last night cuddled up together, more honest than they’d been since they were both thirteen. Her phone buzzes again and she knows that it’s Antiope. 

As she clicks the front door closed, she’s greeted with Antiope leaning over the fence her phone in hand. She’s got dark skin, black dreadlocks tied into a bun behind her hair and an expression that’s always somewhere between neutral and resting-bitch-face. Katja, on the other hand, was around six and a half feet tall, hair in a short ponytail and built like a fortress. Her face immediately softens as Sam appears. 

“Y’alright?” Katja says in her gravelly voice. Antiope looks up from her phone to Sam. 

“Just didn’t sleep super well,” Sam says, “And I just woke up, because I’m not a fucking alien that gets up at six in the morning.”

  
Antiope cracks a smile, “Not to sound like a broken record or anything, but you should try it.”

Sam levels a stare at her, “If this is some elaborate scheme to get me to multiclass into fighter, you can quit while you’re ahead.” 

Antiope laughs, “Two of those is already more than enough in one party. You could try for Monk, though.” Her expression shifts to something more serious as she looks past Sam at the door. “Is Beth in? My aunt asked me to pass on a message.”

Sam feels her blood freeze. Fuck, fuck, _fuck._ “She’s uh - she’s… sick. Yeah,” Sam fumbles. _Fuck, I’m better than this._ She steadies her breath and crosses her arms to showcase sensitivity. “...she’s hungover. I don’t really want to deal with her when she’s hungover, and I especially don’t want to inflict that on you.” 

It’s not technically a lie.

“Fine,” Antiope says with an easy shrug. “Just tell her that my aunt wants to talk to her about the group therapy meetings they’ve been setting up.”

...Group therapy? She hadn’t mentioned anything about that to her. It’s a good thing, probably. Her mom hasn’t exactly acknowledged any of her problems to Sam whenever they did talk. Which… was less and less nowadays. Maybe she just missed it in trying to avoid her. She decides to table that thought for now and instead offers a thumbs up to the party leader. 

“Yup, got it,” Sam says, resisting the urge to exhale in relief as the anxiety leaves her stomach. Katja looks at both of them and clears her throat. 

“Right. Well. Let’s get running before we wind up late, then, shall we girls?” She says with a wide grin. Antiope gives her a nod, no visible change in expression. Sam feels the fear come crawling back as she grimaces. 

“Yep. Let’s… do that. Run all the way to school.”

Katja either ignores or misses her meaning entirely because she claps her on the shoulder with her giant hands and her grin seems to extend. “Count of three, then?” 

Antiope speaks up, “Three, two,” She darts forward, beginning in a full dash, Sam imagines she’ll hear an earful about how playing fair was for suckers considering what specifically they were training to fight. “One!” 

And Katja goes barrelling after her, seemingly

Sam wishes Danielle and Ostentatia were here. They’re at least as shit at this as she is. 

* * *

Antiope and Katja didn’t press. Much. Sam isn’t lacking in social awareness, she knows that her friends were worried about her. Or at the very least trying to spend time with her to get her mind off of what is very obviously bothering her. Or, well, at the very least what they thought was bothering her. 

None of them know that Penelope is alive. Or if they do, they’re really good at hiding it. She slips away during lunch. Slips away is… a bit of an overstatement, she started leaving school before sorcery class and Jace called out to her and congratulated her for pushing the boundaries, because that’s what being a hero is all about apparently.

Whatever, it doesn’t matter. 

When she does get home, she opens the door to find Penelope laying on the couch, in the living room, her hair wrapped in a towel, watching Fantasy Netflix on Sam’s computer.

Sam still can’t help but feel her heart skip whenever she sees her again. Whether it’s from terror, apprehension, disbelief, or like, any other fucking emotion in the book, the same feeling keeps creeping up her spine the second that she spies her. 

Penelope looks up, her expression immediately seeming to brighten. “You’re home.”

Sam reluctantly returns the expression, “Yep,” then with a painfully awkward laugh she adds, “Honey I’m home.”

Penelope giggles. It’s like her old, hypnotic laughter that dimmed the rest of the room and made all eyes fall on her. For a second anyway, before it transforms into coughing and then just breathing and staring up at the ceiling, the movie temporarily forgotten. Sam moves over to sit next to her on the couch and Penelope seems to decide that Sam’s lap is a perfect spot for her to rest her head now. 

Penelope clears her throat in such a way that Sam could tell is only giving way to a guilty confession. 

“Um, your mom nearly saw me but I used suggestion on her and she left your room alone. It was just suggestion, though, nothing else.”

Sam stares at Penelope.

“You used enchantment magic on my fucking mom?” 

Penelope sits up from Sam’s lap and seems to at least look guilty when she continues. 

“I didn’t know what else to do. She just… sorta walked in and tried to uncover the blankets when she like, saw my hair. I’m sorry, okay? I panicked. It won’t happen again.” 

Sam sighs. Fine. This is fine. “Yeah, it won’t.” 

“Are you mad?” Penelope asks quietly, edging a little closer.

“No, Penelope, I’m not mad. I don’t know what I would’ve done instead. Still a fucked up thing to do.”

Penelope is quiet for a little while before sighing and nodding.

Sam doesn’t remember much in the way of awkward silences back before they’d either died or been put in a gem by shitty boyfriends. The tension was still there though. Even back then. Sam looks over at Penelope. She’s so… mortal. Fragile, even. Right now she just seems scared. Sam’s about to speak up to talk about… something important when Penelope pipes up herself. 

“How’s school been? I’ve been kinda dead for the past like, year. So, you know. I’m a bit behind on everything,” Penelope said with a smile that seems almost sad. 

_ If you cared about the school or any of the people in it you wouldn’t have dropped a dragon on them. _

“Aguefort’s back,” Sam shrugs. “I don’t know if you were alive for that. Also, this like, weird sweaty elf became the vice principal? His name is Gilear, but people just call him vice principal lunch lad for some reason.”

Penelope makes a perplexed noise, “The lunch lad? The lunch lad like, actually became the vice principal? Huh.”

Sam starts rambling, bouncing from topic to topic with little to no thought. She talks about how Ragh entirely turned around, came out as gay and started hanging out with Zelda, Gorgug’s friends. Then she starts rambling about the piece of fucking bird shit who was given the name Skrank, and Penelope starts giggling at the very concept. First she avoids talking about the Bad Kids, but eventually Penelope starts asking questions about a couple remarks that slipped through. 

“Yeah, and now apparently Aelwyn’s living with Jawbone,” Sam shrugs. “It’s a bit bizarre that the guidance councillor adopted like half the student body, but he seems pretty cool.” 

Penelope’s quiet, her expression thoughtful. “So Aelwyn’s well and truly turned, huh. That’s a bit surprising.” 

Sam squints. “You say that like you haven’t.”

Penelope laughs, it’s one of her more mean spirited laughs. “And who exactly would I be turning on? Sorry, poorly phrased. But you know what I mean. Kalvaxus is a boat, KVX is shut down, Dayne and Daybreak are dead, thank god. Who’s left? Biz Glitterdew? I think I’d rather go  _ right _ back down to hell, thanks. I know when I’m beat.”

“Right. And that’s the only reason you’re not immediately putting me and my friends in a gem, then?”

Penelope directs a deadpan stare toward Sam. “You can blame me all you want for your new friends. That’s like, entirely fair and all. But I tried to help you. You’re the one who insisted on choosing Johnny fucking Spells over me.”

Sam scowls. “You just dangled these vague hints in front of me and expected me to come crawling back to you just like that, like I needed your permission.”

Penelope sighs. “And you responded to me presenting entirely legitimate concerns by brushing me off to go hang out with your creepy no-fuck boyfriend who hung around high schools and dated underaged girls,” She chews on her lip and scowls right back, though now she can’t meet her eyes. “I’m  _ sorry _ . Is that what you want me to say? I didn’t want to hurt you, and I’m glad you’re alive. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

Sam’s quiet. She pushes Penelope’s head off of her lap and walks to the kitchen, trying to quell the guilt and anger that she feels building up inside of her. So she’ll make tea or coffee or whatever. Because that’ll give her something to do that isn’t just staring at this girl. She opens the fridge and finds it mostly empty. Luckily, there’s one spoiled bottle of milk. Great. 

“Sam?” 

Sam sighs. “Penelope. It isn’t just about me.”

“And I’m sorry about them, too. Really. I didn’t have anything actually against them. Hell, I liked some of them even.”

Sam slams the fridge closed and the lights flicker out and die as they come into contact with the electricity of the storm in Sam’s blood. “And that’s it? You say you’re sorry and suddenly everything’s okay? Kalvaxus was going to cut us open and then he was going to tear the world apart. Your new best friend, the fucking pixie, kept us in machines to toy with us and make us dance for his amusement. Oh, but you’re so  _ sorry _ ? So sorry that it took your fucked up idiot boyfriend being dead for you to even consider stopping?” 

Penelope looks small. And weak. And hurt. And Sam isn’t sure if that’s just more bullshit to make her feel bad about what she just said, because it’s all true and more. 

“So wh-” Sam starts.

  
“What do you want me to do, Sam? Turn myself in? Fine, I’d get that. And if you don’t want me here then I guess, sure. Prison’s gotta be better than hell, right?” Her voice starts getting choked up, and Sam thinks she’s really about to cry. “I couldn’t - You know I couldn’t get out if I tried. Already, if they knew what I’d…” She swallows, tears brimming in her eyes, now red and a bit puffy, “What I’d already told you, I’d have been dead immediately at that point. I tried, Sam. I told you Johnny was bad news. But you -” Penelope stops, takes a deep breath and abandons whatever she was about to say, “But it wasn’t enough.” 

_ But you didn’t listen. _

_ But you wanted to make me jealous. _

_ But you just wanted to prove something.  _

She can guess where that was going.

Sam doesn’t know when she started crying too. Maybe at the same time. They have that kind of synchronisation. “What about…” Sam tries, “What about Antiope? And Katja? And Danielle? And Penny?”

“I’m not good like you,” Penelope admits with a bitter laugh, rubbing at one of her eyes and yanking the towel off her head, “Or them. I never was. I just never cared. I’m sorry. Part of me wishes that I did, I guess. I felt bad but… not bad enough for it to  _ matter _ .”

Sam stares for a moment, before reaching her own hand up to rub the tears from her face. She sniffles and the lights and power of the house flickers on as she strides over to Penelope on the couch. She drops down next to her and slumps her head on Penelope’s quivering shoulder. 

“I don’t think I’m good either. Not naturally,” Sam admits. “I want to be.”

Penelope leans her head against Sam’s. She’s silent. Listening, Sam thinks.

“Do you want to be good?” Sam asks.

Penelope leans closer. 

“I think I want everything, Sam. But like… yeah, maybe. I don’t want to be alone.”

Sam lets out a breath that she didn’t know she’d been holding. “Then… I think that’s a step.”

* * *

**azureblue: u up?**

**aelwyn_aberration: My, Nightingale, so forward.**

**azureblue: oh piss off. i already get teased plenty thank u very much.**

**aelwyn_aberration: What’s up?**

**azureblue: so… i need your help with something. can you uh**

**azureblue: meet me in my backyard at like, 2am and try to keep quiet?**

**aelwyn_aberration: Sounds suspiciously like a trap.**

**aelwyn_aberration: Sure.**

**azureblue: thanks aelwyn**

**aelwyn_aberration: What are friends for?**

Penelope chuckles, her head still against Sam’s shoulder, reading Sam’s messages as they watch the Princess Bride. What are friends for, indeed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did i create an elaborate headcanon for antiope jones and get super invested? absolutely, and i'd do it again. also this hasn't been mentioned yet and idk if it will but ostentatia can spell correctly on her phone because they made gorgug build a functioning autocorrect for her on her birthday. anyway i'm still kind of annoyed that bill seacaster got to be a chaotic evil archfiend who got to raid the nine hells for treasure but my girl penelope hasn't even ascended into a full infernal duchess yet. give her her crown brennan :/
> 
> also Istishia is a true neutral primordial god of water that Sam's grandfather grew up revering before he and his family immigrated from the glass city in the elemental plane of water. sam doesn't worship them but she does curse in their name because her mom still does


End file.
